


The Plan

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Pining, Unrepentant Fluff, boys being rubbish with feelings, oblivious idiots in love, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>More than once Koke or Saúl had had to clip him around the head during training because he was just staring openly at Fernando, even if Fernando wasn’t doing anything, even if Fernando was just standing there. He found himself saying and doing increasingly stupid things just to make him smile, to make him laugh. His favourite part of every day was when they drove to training together and Antoine had Fernando to himself, had his full attention, for the entire journey. Who cites ‘driving to work’ as their favourite part of their day?</i><br/> <br/>Antoine has a crush and Fernando hasn't even noticed. But that's okay because Antoine has a plan. Well. Sort of. He's working on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in fragments on my hard drive for a while now. I kept waiting to be deluged in Fernando/Antoine fics so I wouldn't have to finish it, but it didn't happen and so now I've had to do something with it.
> 
> This is my happy fluffy ship, and for me happy and fluffy don't really go with infidelity. So Antoine has no girlfriend and because I can't really imagine Fernando without his kids, I've gone with 'amicable divorce' for him. We didn't know about baby Elsa when I started writing this.
> 
> Takes place during pre-season summer 2015, which included a [training camp](http://en.clubatleticodemadrid.com/videos/atminsider-los-angeles-de-san-rafael-2) that Fernando described as 'hell'. God bless ATM Insider, without which this fic wouldn't exist at all.

Diego glanced at his watch. Five more minutes of messing about and then he was dragging their sorry souls back to work. They had a league to win, and unless Griezmann could score with Saúl on his back, this piggyback race was not going to get the job done. It was good bonding time though, so he would let it slide. For now. 

As he watched, Griezmann, Saúl, Jackson and Óliver collapsed in an ungainly heap at what was presumably the finish line, bumping into Torres’ legs as they did so. Torres turned with a frown, then smiled when he saw what had hit him. As the others struggled upright, laughing and pushing at each other, Griezmann rolled onto his back and grinned up at Torres, apparently quite happy to lay at his feet for the foreseeable future. Diego heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh. When he had hoped that those two would connect, this hadn’t been quite what he had in mind. Torres held out a hand to help him up and Griezmann sprang happily to his feet, only for a frown to flit across his face as Torres returned to the conversation he had been having with Moyá. Griezmann plucked at Torres’ sleeve. Actually plucked at his sleeve like a little kid trying to get an adult’s attention. Gabi, watching proceedings from a captainly distance, shook his head. Diego decided it was time to put an end to playtime and nodded to Óscar, who grinned and placed his whistle to his lips. He had bought it specifically because it had a particularly shrill quality to it which couldn’t be ignored, and which Diego was certain could be heard back in Madrid. Sure enough, the piercing shriek brought all the players to a standstill with a variety of winces and grimaces. Griezmann dropped Torres’ sleeve.

“Alright, boys!” Óscar called. “Time to run.” With only a little grumbling, the team set off over the gentle and not-so-gentle slopes of the hotel’s golf course. Griezmann ran to catch up with Torres, who dropped back half a step to run alongside him. Juanfran and Koke exchanged glances and Saúl bit back a smile. Even Jackson, who had been at the club for a grand total of — Diego checked his watch again — two hours and thirty seven minutes, raised an eyebrow.

Everyone knew about Fernando and Antoine. Everyone, it seemed, except Fernando and Antoine.

~~

Fernando could tell Antoine had come into their hotel room by the slamming of the door, but he didn’t have the energy to open his eyes. There was a loud groan and the sound of something heavy collapsing onto a bed, and then Antoine’s muffled voice. Fernando forced himself to look at the bed beside his. Antoine was lying facedown, unmoving, his face buried in his pillow. “Did you say something?” Fernando asked. Antoine lifted his head a couple of centimetres from the pillow. It looked like a lot of effort.

“I can’t feel my legs,” Antoine said, then dropped his head back down.

“Lucky you,” Fernando said with a groan. He shifted on the bed. What he wouldn’t give to not be able to feel his legs right now. The physios had given him a good going over in the recovery room, but they couldn’t remove the bone-deep ache that came from pushing his body past its limits. Telling himself that it would get better as his body re-adjusted to the exertion didn’t help in the slightest.

Antoine turned his head so he was facing Fernando, green eyes tired and heavy. “Why does he hate us? Is he punishing us for not winning the league last season?”

Fernando was about to say ‘no’, but actually, “Yeah, probably.”

“This shouldn’t be allowed. I’m going to complain to UEFA. Or the European Court of Human Rights.”

Fernando chuckled. “I’m not sure what they’re going to do about it, but by all means go ahead.” Antoine grunted and closed his eyes. 

“You’ll help me, right?” Antoine said, with the quiet slur of someone about to drift to sleep.

“Have El Cholo charged with human rights abuses? Sure, why not.”

Antoine smiled. “Knew I could count on you.” And within seconds he was asleep, his fingers clutching the pillow like he thought someone was going to steal it. His hair was still damp from the shower; it was going to dry all fluffy and tufty, and Fernando was going to have to listen to him complain about it. He snuffled slightly, a quiet snoring, and it startled Fernando enough for him to realise that he had been staring at him while he slept. He set his alarm to wake them up in two hours — for yet more training — then settled back to get some sleep himself.

~~

“What’s so great about Steven Gerrard anyway?” Antoine asked from where he was sprawled across the foot of Saúl’s bed, his eyes fixed on the TV. Saúl glanced at the screen, where Leo Messi and Kobe Bryant were currently trying to convince them to fly Turkish Airways. 

“What?” he said when the TV didn’t yield an explanation. He shot a questioning look at Koke on the other bed, who looked as perplexed as he felt.

“Fernando,” Antoine began. Saúl suppressed a groan. Koke flopped back on his bed and covered his face with a pillow. “Fernando talks about him all the time. He can’t do a single interview without bringing him up, and whenever you ask him for advice or anything it’s always, ‘Stevie says’, or ‘Stevie once told me’. All the time.”

From under his pillow Koke said something that sounded like “Who does that remind me of?” Antoine gave no sign of having heard him.

“I just don’t see what the big deal is, that’s all.”

Saúl’s jaw worked by itself for a moment while his brain tried to connect to it and produce actual words. “Weren’t you tweeting about what a big deal he is not that long ago?”

“No.”

“Yeah you were,” Koke said, pulling the pillow away from his face. “When he left Liverpool, you were all ‘what an inspiration’ and stuff.”

“I didn’t say ‘inspiration’,” Antoine said, glaring at him. 

“Whatever, Grizi. The point is, in the space of a couple of months you’ve gone from thinking he’s a hero to — oh God. You weren’t just saying that stuff to get Fernando’s attention were you?” Koke said.

“What the fuck? What do you take me for?”

“A desperate fanboy,” Koke said, which was not exactly how Saúl would have put it. Not out loud, anyway. Antoine began feeling around on the bed for something.

“Saúl, pass me that remote would you? My arms ache too much to reach it.”

“Um, why?” Saúl said, moving the remote control further away from him. He didn’t trust the gleam in Antoine’s eye.

“So I can throw it at him.”

“Diego will kill you if you damage hotel property. Or, you know, your teammates.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

“Have we hit a nerve, Anto?”

“I don’t see where you two get off giving me a hard time. You’re just as bad. The first time Fernando walked into training you two literally fell over each other in your rush to talk to him.”

“Yeah, the first time,” Koke said. “Not every single time we’ve seen him since.”

Fortunately Antoine’s phone chose that moment to buzz, saving them all from the inevitable argument. Antoine picked it up, and Saúl knew by the grin that spread across his face who it was. Antoine tapped the screen a few times them jumped up from the bed, his aches and pains apparently forgotten.

“That your girlfriend?” Koke said.

“I don’t have a— oh, very funny,” Antoine said. “I’m going back to my room.”

“Ah, your room. The room you share with Fernando. Yours and Fernando’s room.” 

“Yes, Saúl, the room I share with Fernando. Who is nice to me, unlike you two.”

“I wonder why,” Koke muttered as Antoine sailed out of the door. “Give him a kiss from us,” he added more loudly as Saúl laughed. There was just time for them to see Antoine giving them the finger before the door swung shut.

~~

Being on the same team as Fernando was awesome. There was no other word for it. They say never meet your heroes, but Antoine was finding that meeting your heroes was just fine. He loved Atléti and his teammates were great and Diego was, well, Diego; he’d never once regretted his decision to join the club. But even taking all that into account, there was no denying that the six months since Fernando came back were infinitely better than the six months prior, just by virtue of the fact that Fernando was there, when previously he had not been there.

If there could be said to be a problem, a spanner in the works, a fly in the ointment, a smudge on the otherwise pristine shine of his life, it was that, well, things had got a little bit confusing. He was used to seeing other men, other fit, attractive men, in various stages of nudity; it was part and parcel of being a professional athlete. But seeing was not the same as looking, and lately Antoine found himself… looking. At the muscles working in Fernando’s back as he pulled his shirt off, at the way Fernando’s shorts clung to his thighs after a particularly tough training session, at the glimpse of cock as Fernando wrapped a towel around himself in the locker room, at the way the water dripped over Fernando’s collarbone and down his chest when he came out of the shower. Increasingly, all the time, he found himself looking, looking, looking.

It was inconvenient.

And what was even more inconvenient, it was no longer confined to the locker room. More than once Koke or Saúl had had to clip him around the head during training because he was just staring openly at Fernando, even if Fernando wasn’t doing anything, even if Fernando was just standing there. He found himself saying and doing increasingly stupid things just to make him smile, to make him laugh. His favourite part of every day was when they drove to training together and Antoine had Fernando to himself, had his full attention, for the entire journey. Who cites ‘driving to work’ as their favourite part of their day? 

He had realised some time in his late teens that he liked boys as well as girls, but his dream of being a professional footballer meant that, after a brief period of youthful experimentation, he had pushed that all to the back of his mind, to be dealt with when he retired, if ever. He had had a few crushes but nothing serious, and the increasingly large number of women who took an interest in him made it easy to ignore his other preferences. But this? This could not be ignored. And it was getting worse. Sooner or later someone who wasn’t Koke or Saúl was going to notice, if they hadn’t already. Sooner or later _Fernando_ was going to notice, and Antoine didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. It all depended on whether Fernando felt the same way. Sometimes he thought that he did. Sometimes when Antoine was looking he would catch Fernando looking back; sometimes the smile would linger in Fernando’s eyes long after it had left his mouth, in a way that made Antoine feel was meant for him; sometimes Fernando would seek out Antoine’s attention as Antoine sought out his. Other times Antoine had the definite impression that Fernando was humouring him, tolerating what Koke called his ‘fanboy bullshit’ because Fernando was a nice guy who wouldn’t dream of doing anything else; that Fernando didn’t bother about him at all when Antoine wasn’t forcing him to, that his thoughts glided over Antoine like water over glass. That none of it even mattered because Fernando was straight anyway.

When he was young, Antoine had dreamed about scoring goals like Fernando Torres, and occasionally, as he got a little older, about scoring goals with Fernando Torres. Now, he couldn’t stop dreaming about doing other things with Fernando Torres, and it was fucking him up.

~~

Gabi took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against the open door of Diego’s hotel room-cum-temporary office, trying to shake off his weird sense of apprehension. He was the captain, he had meetings with the manager all the time. There was nothing different about this one. “You wanted to see me?” he said when Diego looked up from his iPad.

“Come in. Shut the door.” He motioned with his head and then waved a hand at the chair by the desk. “Have a seat.” Gabi did as he was told and waited quietly while Diego finished what he was doing and sat down on the edge of the bed, placing the iPad beside him. The screen showed a green field with eleven dots in a 4-4-2 formation. “So. Torres and Griezmann.”

Gabi prayed fervently that he was being asked his opinion about how a strike partnership might be most effectively fed from midfield. “Yes?”

“What’s happening there?”

Well, that didn’t help him at all. He decided to stick to football. “I think they’re getting there. They can connect well but the consistency…” he trailed off as Diego shook his head.

“Not that. The other thing.”

Damn. This was what he’d been afraid of. “The other thing. Right.” It was pretty obvious what Diego was talking about, but on the off-chance he was talking about something else Gabi didn’t want to drop Fernando and Antoine in the shit.

“Gabi, I don’t want you to betray any confidences or anything like that. I just want you to keep an eye on them, and tell me if you think there’s anything I need to know. If anything changes.”

“You want me to spy on them? Diego, sorry, but that does sound a lot like betraying their confidence.”

Diego made an exasperated noise and shook his head. “Look, I’m not interested in whether they’re fucking,” he said, ignoring the choked sound Gabi made. “It’s not my business and in any event I really, really don’t want to know about it. If they’re together, if they’re not together, if they want to continue dancing around each other like a pair of nervous kids at their first boy-girl party, whatever. I don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect their football. If it seems like things have, shall we say, taken a turn for the worst, if it looks like things are going badly, we need to deal with it before it becomes a problem. If you think it’s something you can deal with yourself, by all means do so. You know you have my complete confidence. But if it all goes tits up and I’ve been kept in the dark about it, there’ll be hell to pay. Clear?”

“Absolutely. That sounds, um, reasonable.” 

Diego laughed. “Interesting choice of words.” He indicated the door with a nod of his head. “Off you go.” He was absorbed in his iPad before Gabi had even got out of his chair.

~~

Fernando wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with hero-worship, from both sides of the equation. Most people attempted to hide it at least a little bit, even if they generally failed. He himself had never bothered and he appreciated that Antoine didn’t either. He wondered sometimes if it should trouble him more than it did, but Fernando had never been immune to having his ego fluffed, he didn’t know anyone who was, and Antoine was willing to do a great deal of fluffing. He couldn’t deny the warm glow he had felt the first time Antoine asked him for advice, even as he had laughed and shaken his head at him. And Antoine had persisted, asking for advice on everything from football to hairdressers to restaurants. It was nice; like having a kid brother without all the annoying kid brother stuff; like being the captain without all the responsibility and weight of actually being the captain.

It helped, he supposed, that Antoine was friendly and smiley with absolutely everyone, so his attentions to Fernando never stood out or felt uncomfortable. And he genuinely enjoyed Antoine’s company. He liked driving to work with him, pointing out places he knew, telling him stories about his youth, about his childhood. For all Koke’s jokes, Antoine wasn’t so in awe that he wouldn’t complain about Fernando’s ‘Dad Rock’ music, and apparently no amount of youthful idolising could prevent him from leaving his wet towels all over the bathroom floor for Fernando to pick up. Or from leaving his crap all over the bathroom counter.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered as he searched through the debris for his razor.

“You swear in English a lot, do you know that?” Antoine said from the doorway. Fernando shrugged.

“It’s the first thing you learn. And it’s a good language to swear in.” He pushed aside Antoine’s aftershave collection — really, who was he trying to impress? They were at training camp — and found his razor behind it.

“Really?” Antoine said. “Isn’t it a bit limited? Seems to consist mostly of the word ‘fuck’.”

“Ah, but there are times when only a good ‘fuck’ will do,” Fernando said, glancing up with a grin. Antoine’s face froze for a second, then settled into its usual smile. Fernando turned his attention back to the counter, now searching for his shaving foam.

“Right,” Antoine said. “It’s here, by the way.” He plucked the canister of shaving foam out from under a facecloth and handed it to Fernando. “Don’t spend too long preening, will you? If we’re late Óscar will make us run extra laps and then my legs will definitely fall off and I’ll never score again.” Fernando rolled his eyes, to no effect as Antoine was already turning away and heading back into the bedroom.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” he said as the door swung shut. “If you’re that concerned, just go without me.”

There was a pause and then, slightly muffled by the door, “Nah, I’ll wait. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.” 

“I’d be quicker if I didn’t have to spend twenty minutes looking for my stuff every morning,” Fernando called. Antoine’s reply was indistinct but unamused. “And I don’t preen,” he added. 

“You keep telling yourself that, Torres.”

~~

“He’s a sadist. An actual sadist. In medieval times he’d have worked in a torture chamber or something. But he was born in the wrong era and now he has to be a fitness coach.” Fernando gave a non-committal grunt from the other bed, which Antoine took as permission to keep talking. “I bet if Diego let him he’d have us on one of those — what do you call those stretching things?”

Fernando’s brow furrowed for a moment. “A rack?”

“Right. He’d have us on a rack and try to claim it makes us more flexible or something.”

“Actually, I think I saw that on the schedule for tomorrow.”

“You say that as a joke, but you’ll be sorry when it turns out to be true and Óscar’s working your shoulder until it pops put of its socket like, like a champagne cork.”

“It’s odd how you claim everything hurts too much to move, and yet your mouth seems able to move just fine,” Fernando said. His voice was flat but the corners of his mouth were pulling into dimples so Antoine knew he wasn’t really annoyed.

“Everything does hurt. And I’m all itchy. I told you I’m having this weird reaction to some plant on the golf course, right?” 

“You mentioned it, yeah.”

“They gave me this stuff that— shit.”

“What?”

“I forgot to put my cream on. I used the wash stuff in the shower but I forgot the cream. It’s in the bathroom.” The bathroom was about about two metres away from Antoine’s bed, which was a good metre and a half further away than he wanted anything to be right now.

“You say that as though it’s something I need to know.”

Antoine turned his best wounded puppy look on Fernando, who was apparently wise to this move as he had his eyes shut. “Please,” he wheedled. “The bathroom’s all the way over there.”

“Forget it. I’m not leaving this bed unless the building’s on fire. You’re not the only one who’s tired, you know.”

Antoine was familiar enough with Fernando’s stubbornness to know that this was a lost cause. With a loud groan he rolled off the bed and dragged himself as dramatically as possible towards the bathroom. Behind him he could hear Fernando laughing. “Jesus Christ, you’re worse than my son when he doesn’t want to go to bed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m genuinely suffering here.” Fernando just laughed harder, and Antoine had to hide his pleased grin behind his hand. He retrieved the tube of cream and went back to his bed, slipping his shirt off as he went. Fernando was watching him as he prodded experimentally at the little red bumps that were spreading all over his chest and Antoine considered putting on a show for him as he uncapped the cream. He decided that he had to draw the line somewhere and went about applying the cream to his torso in as perfunctory a manner as possible; there was really nothing sexy about an allergic reaction, no matter how much rubbing it involved. The little moan he let out when the cool cream touched his itchy skin was genuine however. 

It was when he reached his shoulders that he realised he was going to have a problem. He looked up to find Fernando was still watching him with that shuttered look Antoine hated because he didn’t know what it meant or how to react to it. “Um, the building’s not on fire but my back is. Would you mind?” He held out the cream. Fernando looked at it for a moment.

“Sure. Of course.” He got up and crossed over to Antoine’s bed, plucking the tube from his hands and turning him gently by the shoulders so he could reach his back when he sat on the edge of the bed. Antoine tried not to tense up. The gentle hum he gave when Fernando touched his back was only partly due to the cream this time. “Okay?” Fernando said, lifting his hand away.

“Yeah. It’s nice. The cream, you know?” Fernando put his hand back.

“This looks pretty bad, Anto,” Fernando said, smoothing his hand down Antoine’s spine. “This must be driving you mad.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Antoine sputtered. He was tired, and everything hurt and itched, and it was exhausting to feel this way about someone who didn’t even notice, but Fernando’s hands were gentle and the cream felt good on his skin. By the time Fernando had trailed his fingers along Antoine’s lower back and then patted him on the shoulder and handed back the tube of cream, Antoine was half-hard and feeling sort of like he might cry.

“Antoine? Are you alright?” Fernando said, ducking his head to look at him. Antoine forced a smile onto his face.

“Course. I’m just tired.”

“You should probably sleep then,” Fernando said, still with that look of concern. Antoine nodded and lay down. Closed his eyes and told himself he was imagining the feel of Fernando’s gaze on him as he drifted off to sleep.

~~

“Bye, Daddy.” The duo of childish voices filled the hotel room and brought a lump to Fernando’s throat. He smiled and waved and they waved back, their little hands a blur on the screen. “Bye,” they chorused again as the picture cut out. Fernando dashed his hand across his eyes and took a deep breath. The door banged open, making him jump.

“Hey, man. You mind if— oh.” Antoine stopped halfway across the room. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

Antoine hesitated then crossed the rest of the room to stand beside Fernando’s chair. “Talking to your kids?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to… you know.” Fernando took another breath as Antoine put his arm around him, squeezing his shoulder.

“Hey, no, nothing to apologise for. I’m the one barging in here like, well, like me.” Fernando smiled at that and leaned his head against Antoine. Seated like this, he was just about level with his waist. His t-shirt was soft and warm. He could smell the cream Antoine was using for his allergy and wondered who he had got to put it on his back for him today. It hadn’t been Fernando. “You miss them?”It took Fernando a second to remember what they had been talking about. 

“A lot. Stupid isn’t it? I only saw them a couple of days ago and I’ll be seeing them again at the end of the week.”

“It’s not stupid at all. They’re your kids.” 

“Thanks. Not everyone thinks like that, you know.”

“Aww. Have the big bad bullies being picking on you?” He chuckled at his own joke; Fernando could feel his abs quivering. Fernando laughed. 

“No, nothing like that. But I’ve had a few odd looks over the years, even from people who have kids themselves.”

“Well, clearly their kids aren’t as awesome as yours.”

“That goes without saying.”

“You see them a lot, right? When you’re at home, I mean.”

“All the time. Every day, unless Olalla’s taken them to see her parents or something. We have joint custody and we get on well, so we both spend a lot of time with the kids.”

Antoine pulled a face; Fernando could see it reflected in the darkened screen of the laptop. “I don’t understand how people do the ‘still good friends’ thing. When I split up with my last girlfriend she threw a Player of The Month trophy at my head and said she never wanted to see me again. And I was happy to comply.”

“Oh, there was plenty of that at the beginning. Well, she never threw anything at me. But it was ugly. Just because a break-up is mutual and amicable doesn’t make it easy.” Fernando could see Antoine nodding, but he could tell he didn’t really understand. Fernando wasn’t sure he fully understood it himself, even now. “But once you’ve got through that part, it’s okay. We’re really good friends now. She keeps trying to set me up with people.” 

Antoine’s fingers flexed against his shoulder. “Really?” 

“The latest is someone she knows from back home who just moved to Madrid. He’s ‘just my type’ apparently. Whatever that means.”

Antoine had gone very, very still, except for the grip on Fernando’s shoulder which was getting slowly but steadily tighter. “He? He’s just your type?” he said, loosening his hand. “Did— did you just come out to me?”

Shit. Fernando had a split-second to decide whether or not to claim Antoine had misheard him. He took a deep breath. “Um, yes. I suppose I did.” He hadn’t meant to, it just slipped out. After years of keeping this very closely guarded secret, it just slipped out. Just like that. “Is that okay?”he said, twisting round to look up at Antoine, who was looking back at him with his mouth slightly open and a blank look in his eyes.

“Of course. Yeah, sure, of course. I’m just surprised, that’s all. It’s fine, man, I’m—” He took a deep breath and the blank look was replaced by a smile. “Thanks for telling me. You can trust me, you know.”

“I know that, Anto.” He stood up and slipped an arm around Antoine’s waist, pulling him towards him. “Thank—” Fernando stopped with a frown. Antoine had tensed up when Fernando went to hug him. It had only been for a second, but it had definitely happened. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“Shut up, man, of course I am,” Antoine said, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his head against his shoulder. “It’s really not a problem. Really.”

Before Fernando could respond there was a knock at the door. “Grizi, did you ask him yet? What’s taking so long?” 

“Saúl, the door’s clearly open. Just go in.” Koke had barely finished speaking when the door swung open. “Oh sorry, are we interrupting cuddle time?” 

“Yes, go away,” Antoine said. Fernando laughed and stepped away. 

“You really need to start shutting the door properly instead of letting it just swing behind you.” Antoine nodded in agreement, glaring at the others. “What was it you wanted to ask me?”

“Hmm? Oh. Do you mind if we have X-Box night in our room? I can’t be bothered setting it up in theirs.”

“Sure, go ahead. As long as you don’t mind me not joining in,” he added as Koke and Saúl installed themselves on Antoine’s bed. 

“Good call,” Koke said. “You don’t want to tarnish Antoine’s golden boy image of you by showing yourself up at Halo.” Antoine glared at him while Saúl elbowed him in the stomach.

“Aww, come on,” Antoine said, turning back to him with imploring eyes. “Team up with me, we’ll slaughter these two clowns.” Fernando dearly wanted to say no. Apart from anything else, he really did suck at Halo. But Antoine’s hopeful expression was too much for him.

“Alright, fine,” he said, throwing his hands up and smiling at the little cheer Antoine gave.

It was alarming, really, how little resolve he had when it came to Antoine.

~~

Antoine didn’t know why he hadn’t said anything. Fernando had let slip his less-straight-than-previously-assumed status, and Antoine hadn’t said anything. It would have been the perfect opportunity to tell him, to let him know that there was the possibility for more than Halo nights and car-pooling if Fernando was interested, and also to let him know that he wasn’t alone. But his brain had stuttered, caught on that one word, that one little pronoun. And ‘It’s fine, man, I’m bi’ had frozen in his mouth. He had panicked and the moment had passed, and now it was two days later and they were leaving tomorrow. There would be no more bedtime chats or early morning bickering, no more deliberately leaving stuff on Fernando’s bed just to watch the way he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. 

He knew he was being ridiculous. He saw Fernando all the time, they traveled together all the time. In a week they would be going to China and Japan, and there would be away matches and other trips too. Likely as not, they would end up sharing a room again at some point. But he couldn’t help feeling that the last couple of weeks had been a missed opportunity.

“You’re being stupid,” Gabi said from beside him. Antoine jumped.

“How do you know?” Antoine said. “I mean, I didn’t say anything.” Gabi rolled his eyes.

“You didn’t need to.”

“Do you have psychic powers? Is that some sort of captain’s privilege?”

Gabi ignored this, which was probably for the best. “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?”

“Who?” Antoine said, as though Gabi hadn’t just caught him staring mournfully across the room at Fernando.

“You know who. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He could reject me, he could laugh at me.”

“He would never laugh at you, Antoine.”

“No. I know. He could definitely reject me though.”

“Perhaps, though I seriously doubt it. But would you really be any worse off than you are now?”

Antoine thought about driving to training in silence, about awkward training sessions and polite smiles and trying to maintain a friendship that was completely lop-sided. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”

~~

Gabi hadn’t intended to speak to Antoine about Fernando. He hadn’t intended to get involved at all. But there was something unnatural about seeing Antoine without his perma-smile, and over the last few days he had seen less and less of it. Diego’s comment about things going badly had been clanging in his head, and he found himself trying to prod Antoine into action. He should have known before he started that he had picked the wrong target. Antoine wouldn’t make a move without some sort of sign from Fernando, and no matter how obvious Fernando’s feelings were to literally everyone else on the team, apparently they weren’t obvious to Antoine. Unfortunately, Gabi was fairly sure they weren’t obvious to Fernando either.

Fernando wasn’t like Antoine. You couldn’t just say to him, ‘by the way, have you noticed you’re in love?’ and expect him to go along with it. Fernando would deny it on reflex because he has his kids to think about and a career to resurrect and a league to win, and he doesn’t have the time or energy to be in love. And then he’d dig his heels in because that’s just what Fernando does. Once he accepted his own feelings Gabi was confident he would pursue them wherever they led, but he had to get there by himself; he couldn’t be pushed, he could only be guided.

If only Gabi had the slightest idea how to do that.

~~

“You’re being stubborn and stupid,” Olalla said between sips of coffee.

“You always say that,” Fernando said absently, rummaging through the kitchen drawer for the little screwdriver.

“That’s because you’re always being stubborn and stupid.” 

“I’m a professional footballer, Oly.” He finally unearthed the screwdriver from underneath a pack of light bulbs and set about unscrewing the battery compartment of Leo’s toy robot. “I can’t be seen going out with a man, no matter how discrete you say he is.”

“I know that. I do. I’m not saying you should marry him and invite the press to your big gay wedding. I’m just saying, meet the guy. Live a little.”

“Nope. Not doing it. Just drop it, would you?” He got the robot open and began looking for batteries. There were about eight different types in the drawer, one of them had to be right.

“Fine. Sorry. I won’t mention him again. What about someone on your team?” Out of the corner of his eye Fernando could see her fingers drumming on the worktop as she waited for his response. “Fernando, stop pretending that robot requires all of your attention. What about your team?”

“I am not dating a teammate, are you out of your mind?”

“Actually, I meant could they introduce you to someone. But if that’s the way your mind’s going…”

“I’m not interested in any of my teammates. To my knowledge, no one on my team is even gay.”

“To your knowledge. Doesn’t mean they’re not. Does anyone know about you?”

“Actually, yes. Antoine knows.” 

Olalla’s fingers stopped their drumming. “Antoine? Hmm.”

“No.”

“Why not. He’s short and he adores you. That’s your thing, isn’t it?”

“That is not my thing. Jesus Christ.”

“I just want you to be happy, Fer.”

“Then stop nagging me. And help me find the right batteries for this thing.”

Olalla cast a critical eye over the contents of the drawer. “None of these are the right batteries.”

Well, wasn’t that just typical. “You could have mentioned that earlier.”

“I didn’t notice. Besides, you don’t like it when I try to help you.” She drained her coffee. “My mum will pick the kids up in the morning, I have an appointment.” She stretched up on her toes to kiss his cheek then gave him a quick hug. “Have fun in Japan.”

“It’s work, not a holiday,” he protested.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. It’s playing a couple of friendlies and talking to some fans, it’s not like you’re heading down the mines.” She shook her head with a smile, and waved as she headed down the hallway to say goodbye to the kids. A couple of seconds later she stuck her head back into the kitchen. “Say hi to Antoine for me, won’t you?” she said with a grin before she disappeared again. Fernando glared after her as her laughter drifted through the house.

~~

Antoine hadn’t been able to forget about what Gabi had said. He had tried, God knew he had tried, but no matter what he did, Gabi had planted a seed that was determined to take root. The fact that the team captain had a) noticed, b) felt compelled to mention it and c) seemed fairly confident that Fernando wouldn’t react badly had been something of a wakeup call. While Antoine certainly wasn’t going to do anything so completely stupid as to actually _tell_ Fernando how he felt, he was certain he could up his game when it came to making Fernando _see_ how he felt (leaving plenty of room for plausible deniability) and also making Fernando feel the same way.

Antoine knew two things: that Fernando liked men, and that he himself was not unattractive. It was just a matter of connecting those two things in Fernando’s brain, then connecting his brain to his groin. Simple. Sort of. Antoine knew other things, too. He knew Fernando was a committed professional who would automatically discount his teammates as potential partners unless something forced him to see the benefits of such an arrangement. He knew that Fernando liked him already, that he enjoyed his company, that he trusted him with something that few other people were privy to. He knew that Fernando was aware of the fact that people found him very attractive indeed, but that he didn’t quite get why that was; that if you paid him a compliment beyond ‘looking good, man, nice shirt’, he got all embarrassed and didn’t know what to do. It was only natural, Antoine reasoned, that it would never occur to Fernando that Antoine might want him, because it didn’t occur to Fernando that anyone might want him unless they were shaking and holding back tears or asking him to marry them. Years as a deeply reluctant sex symbol had warped his perception. Also, Fernando was still under the impression Antoine was straight. That didn’t help.

Sitting in the airport departure lounge, waiting for their flight to Japan and trying not to stare too blatantly at Fernando, Antoine came up with a plan.

Step one: Dial down the fanboy stuff. How was Fernando supposed to see him as anything other than a hero-worshipping kid when he behaved like a hero-worshipping kid? 

Step two: Engineer a heart to heart conversation about the pressures of being a gay footballer, making sure Fernando knew that Antoine shared his pain. This would hopefully prompt Fernando to reinterpret some of the things he had previously classified as just ‘Antoine being Antoine’ while also giving them a shared experience that went deeper than That Song We Both Like.

Step three: Flirt with Fernando; stop flirting with everyone else except one other person (probably Koke or Saúl) who would be flirted with extra hard. This would show Fernando that he was special, and would also make him jealous and then he would see that he loved Antoine after all.

Step three, revised: Flirt with Fernando; stop flirting with everyone else. He needed to show Fernando that he was special, and that meant he couldn’t just treat him like everyone else, or play stupid games. 

Step four: ?

Step five: Love and happiness. And sex.

So it wasn’t a perfect plan. But it was a start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I lost all inspiration for this fic for ages. Nando wasn't scoring, there was uncertainty about his contract and the transfer ban, Grizi shaved all his hair off. It was a traumatic time and I couldn't get into writing happy, optimistic fluff. But now my muse is back and so, at last, is this fic. Sorry for the wait.

Diego settled begrudgingly into his seat beside Germán. He hated long flights, even in business class. 

“Cheer up, Cholo. We’ll be there soon,” his so-called friend said with a grin. “Only nineteen more hours to go.”

“Oh, shut up. Did you do what I asked?”

“Yes, you micro-managing lunatic, I made sure their seats are together.”

“Good.”

“You do realise that footballers are basically just big children and won’t stay where you put them. They can change seats if they want to.”

“Yes. But they won’t want to.”

~~

“Fernando? Fer? You awake?” Antoine’s voice penetrated the fog of a mind about to switch off for the night, and Fernando stuck his head out from under his blanket with a groan.

“I am now. What is it?”

“Sorry. Doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep.”

Fernando blinked through the dim interior of the cabin. Antoine looked unusually serious, almost anxious. Fernando pushed himself up in his seat with a yawn. “No, I’m awake. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just— I need to tell you something.”

“Sure.”

“It’s about what—” Antoine broke off and popped his head up, peering round the cabin like a meerkat. Fernando glanced round too; the nearest people to them were Koke and Saúl across the aisle, apparently fast asleep. He turned back to Antoine, who was settling back down into his seat. “It’s about what you told me. Before, you know. At San Rafael?”

“Yeah?” Fernando said, foreboding building in his stomach and creeping up his chest. “What about it?”

“I should have said something at the time, I don’t know why I didn’t. I panicked, I guess, I dunno, I— I just wanted to say. Well. Me too.”

“You too?”

“Yeah. I— I’m bi.”

“Oh.” Fernando burst into relieved laughter. “Fuck.”

“What? What’s funny?” Antoine said. He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. Fernando took a deep breath and calmed down a bit.

“Nothing. I just thought you were going to say something else.”

“You thought I was going to be a dick about it? Thanks, man.”

“Hey, no, of course not. Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I know you’re a good guy, I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool. Sorry. Overreacted a bit. You’ve good reason to be paranoid. In general I mean. I didn’t tell you until you told me, did I? Not even then, really. It’s not because I thought you’d be homophobic or anything it’s just, it’s always been a secret, and sometimes even good people… sorry. I’m rambling.”

“Antoine.” Fernando reached across and gripped Antoine’s hand. His fingers twitched and then he returned the hold. “It’s okay. I get it.” He squeezed his hand then let go and drew his arm back into the warmth of the blanket.

“So, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever, you know. How do you, I mean, how do you go about… you know.”

“Are you asking about relationships or just about how to get sex without it ending up in the papers?”

Antoine looked at him for a long moment. “Relationship. Definitely.”

“Ah. I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. I was with Olalla for a long time and after that, well. It’s hard to trust people.”

Antoine sighed. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.” He frowned. “So if you can’t help me with that, does that mean you can help me with the sex thing?” He’d barely finished speaking before he was flushing bright red. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Fernando bit back the sarcastic remark he had been about to make. Antoine looked too embarrassed for teasing. “I know you didn’t,” he said as reassuringly as he could. “And, yeah, there are, uh, people you can call. Um, professionals.” He was pretty sure the colour of his cheeks could now match Antoine’s own.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. Makes sense.”

“I have a number you can call, if you want. When we get home. They probably won’t fly out to China for you.”

“Yeah, no, that’d be great,” Antoine said, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “Yeah, it’s just, I wanted—”

“You were asking about relationships not sex, weren’t you? Sorry.” He looked at Antoine’s down-turned mouth mouth and tired eyes, thought about how he hadn’t seemed his cheery self lately. “Was it a general question or did you have something specific in mind? Someone?” He tried not to wince as he spoke. He sounded like someone’s grandmother.

“Yeah. There’s someone I’m… interested in.”

“Is he interested in you?”

Antoine pulled a face. “Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Well. I guess you don’t know until you ask.”

“Right.”

“What have you got to lose?”

“A friend.”

“Ah. Yeah, that one sucks.” Antoine raised an eyebrow at that but Fernando shook his head. He wasn’t getting into that right now. If ever.

“So, what you were saying about, you know, people you can call. Have you only ever… I mean— have you ever with anyone else? With someone you know won’t go to the papers? Like, I dunno, a teammate? They wouldn’t be able to give your secret away without giving away theirs too.”

“What?” Fernando hissed. “No, of course not, are you out of your mind?” Antoine’s face fell. “Fuck, sorry. I didn’t mean— that’s just something that has the potential to go really badly wrong, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Yeah, probably. You’re right, ignore me. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s just— actually, yeah, it’s probably stupid. Sorry.”

“No, you’re right.” He gave a yawn Fernando was certain was mostly faked. Nonetheless, it set Fernando yawning too. “We should probably get some sleep. Sorry for waking you.” He snuggled down under his blanket and closed his eyes.

“Anto, is there someone on the team that you’re—”

“Forget I said anything. I was just thinking out loud.” His eyes remained firmly shut, his eyebrows pinched together.

“Antoine,” Fernando said, not wanting to leave it like that. Antoine cracked an eye open. “Thanks for telling me.”

Antoine smiled. “You’re welcome. Thanks for listening. Now be quiet. I need my beauty sleep.”

“You’re beautiful enough,” Fernando teased, trying to get things back to normal. There was a pause from the other seat.

“Go to sleep, Torres.”

~~

Antoine collapsed onto his bed with a groan, an arm thrown over his eyes. That had been a disaster. At no point had he ever imagined that the ‘I’m into guys too’ conversation would involve Fernando giving him the phone number for a discrete, high-class escort agency. And his reaction to Antoine asking about teammates had not been encouraging. Far from laying the groundwork for a potential relationship, Antoine seemed to have laid the groundwork for Fernando to be his gay big brother. 

On the other hand, he had called him beautiful. So, there was that.

Fuck this. The plan was stupid. The plan was never going to work. He should just give up and find a girlfriend. Or resign himself to lifetime of loneliness and sex with very expensive prostitutes.

~~

It was Saúl, Fernando decided. His first thought had been Koke, but the brotherly banter between them was just a bit too, well, brotherly. With Saúl he was softer. Saúl was quieter, sweeter. He liked dogs. If Fernando were Antoine, he’d go for Saúl.

Gabi swung into the seat next to him as the bus rumbled into life and set off. “This humidity’s a bitch, huh?” Gabi said. Fernando agreed. The humidity was indeed a bitch. They chatted about the weather, the food, the fans, the hotel. Fernando had known Gabi long enough to be able to tell when he was talking around what he really wanted to say. What wasn’t apparent was why, until Fernando noticed the way he kept glancing down the bus at Antoine and Saúl.

“Do you think Antoine’s being acting odd lately?” Fernando asked, suppressing a smile when Gabi jumped.

“Odd how?”

Fernando shrugged. “Just not himself somehow. He seems quieter. I thought it was just me because, well, because he told me something — something private — and I thought maybe he regretted telling me. But I’ve been watching him and he’s like this with everyone.”

“You’ve been watching him have you?” Gabi said with a little smile.

“Sure. He’s my friend and I’m worried about him. Of course I’m going to pay attention to how he’s behaving.”

“Of course. Have you tried asking him what’s wrong?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t you think you should?” Gabi said, as though he were speaking to a particularly dim child.

“I don’t want to push. If he regrets telling me… what he told me then he might not want to talk about it.”

“That’s stupid,” Gabi said, “But whatever. If you won’t talk to him then he and Saúl seem close these days. Maybe he knows something.”

Fernando looked down the bus to where Antoine and Saúl were talking quietly, their heads bent together. “Yeah. I bet he does.”

~~

The humidity was killing Antoine. Not only did it make training feel a little bit like drowning, but it also made your kit cling to every curve and hollow of your body. More problematically for Antoine, it made Fernando’s kit cling to every curve and hollow of his body. For the most part he was doing a pretty good job of remembering that he was a professional and remaining focused on the task in hand. But everybody has their limits, and Antoine reached his round about the seventh time Fernando bent over as they were cooling down.

“He’s doing this on purpose,” he muttered under his breath.

“Who’s doing what on purpose?” asked Saúl, who was closer than Antoine had realised.

“Óscar. Trying to kill us.”

“Right,” Saúl said, in the deadpan tones of the deeply sceptical. Antoine didn’t hear anything else he might have said as Fernando turned then and looked right at him. He smiled, but it faded when Antoine didn’t return it, and they were left staring at each other across the field. “Unbelievable,” Saúl muttered. Óscar called a merciful halt to proceedings and they all trotted obediently and gratefully in the direction of the showers.

Antoine grabbed his towel and shampoo and made a beeline for the showers while the others were still hanging around and gossiping. Once there, he leaned his head against the wall, took a deep breath, and counted slowly to ten. “Shit,” he muttered to himself.

“Antoine?” Fernando’s voice made him jump, and he would have slipped on the tiled floor if he hadn’t had the wall to support himself on. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Antoine said, forcing a smile Fernando couldn’t even see onto his face. “Just tired.” He almost choked on the last word as he turned and saw Fernando standing there completely naked. Somehow he hadn’t expected it, though quite what he had expected in the showers he didn’t know.

“Okay,” Fernando said at last, apparently unperturbed by Antoine staring silently at him. He flashed a quick smile and turned his shower on, stepping under the water and tipping his head back. Antoine watched the water slide over his body for several seconds before realising he was being creepy, and stepped into his own shower. He turned to face the wall to try to force himself to behave.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed when he heard Fernando say his name again, but it must have been a while because when he turned his head he saw the room was full, and Fernando was done with his shower and was wrapping a towel around his waist. Antoine hadn’t even opened his shower gel yet; had just stood there in the spray, turning it over in his hands. He was losing it, he realised. Fernando approached him hesitantly. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said, keeping his voice low to not be overheard by their teammates now milling around them. 

“Yeah. Like I said, just tired. You know I’m a wimp who can’t cope with Óscar’s training regime,” he tried to joke. It didn’t look like Fernando was buying it. 

“Right.” He glanced round at the others in the shower room and stepped closer to Antoine, straight into the spray of the water. He put a hand on Antoine’s neck and leaned in close, the wet skin of his chest sliding against Antoine’s arm. Antoine closed his eyes and tried not to think of all the fantasies he’d had that started just like this. Though his fantasies didn’t usually involve Juanfran singing in the shower beside him. “What about Saúl? Everything okay there? You two okay?” he said, so close that his lips brushed Antoine’s ear as he spoke. If Antoine hadn’t known that Fernando wasn’t a cruel sadist he would have thought he was doing it on purpose. It took several seconds for his brain to register what Fernando had said.

“Saúl? Yeah, we’re fine. Why?”

“Just… be careful there, yeah? For both of you.” He pressed a kiss to Antoine’s temple and before Antoine could say anything, he was gone. Antoine stared at the wall in front of him. Fernando thought there was something between him and Saúl. And was apparently fine with that. 

Something nudged at Antoine’s arm. He turned to find Juanfran prodding him with his shower gel bottle, which at some point he must have dropped and not even noticed. “You know Óscar’s still going to work you tomorrow even if you drown yourself. Better get a move on,” Juanfran said. There was something sympathetic about his tone that Antoine didn’t like.

“Right. Thanks,” he muttered.

By the time he got out of the shower his fingers were all wrinkled and Fernando had gone. So had half the team. “Honestly, Grizi,” Koke said as he stepped back into the locker room. “What have you been doing in there? Or should I not ask?” he added with an exaggerated wink. Antoine threw his shampoo bottle at him and didn’t answer.

~~

Fernando had never been one for slow realisations and gradual understanding. It was like information and insights stored themselves up in some locked compartment of his brain where he didn’t even know about them, then sprung themselves on him when he least expected it. His epiphanies had always struck at the most inconvenient times. He had realised he was in love with Olalla while wedged into the back of a car with her grandparents and a cousin; he had realised he wasn’t in love with her during their anniversary dinner. He realised he liked Antoine Griezmann rather more than he ought to during the match against Shanghai when Fernando scored and Antoine ran over to hug him. Understanding hit him without warning, and he found himself clinging to Antoine like he’d just scored the winning goal of the Champion’s League final, not the final goal of a three-nil rout in a pre-season friendly.

The second epiphany struck about ten seconds after the first, when he saw the way Antoine was looking back at him, like he couldn’t look away either. When he felt the way Antoine clung to him in return, his fingers pressing into the back of his neck. They were pressed so tightly together Fernando could feel Antoine’s heartbeat thudding in counterpoint to his own. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but the heat of Antoine’s arms around him and the smile lighting up his eyes.

“Torres, Griezmann,” Diego yelled from across the field. “Gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes on your own time.”

They broke apart, reality asserting itself ruthlessly, as was reality’s wont. They were in the middle of a match, 57,000 fans looking on; their teammates were watching them, their coach was watching them. There were cameras everywhere. Fernando forced a smile and ruffled Antoine’s hair. Belatedly thanked Carrasco for the assist. Tried to act normal. He jogged back to his position with his head down.

The whole of the second half was a complete blur, but three-nil up with the defense doing their work meant Fernando’s auto-pilot mode was enough to get by without invoking the wrath of Diego. He showered and dressed in a daze and messed with his hair in the mirror for five minutes before he realised he wasn’t actually paying any attention to what his hands were doing. He gave up with a sigh and threw his gel back into his wash bag. He needed to think. He needed to talk to Antoine. He wasn’t sure which to do first.

A hand on his arm pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned to find the object of those thoughts looking anxiously up at him. “Fer—”

“Not here, okay?” Fernando said as gently as he could. “Come by my room later. Before we leave. We can— we can talk.”

Antoine gave a tentative smile. “Sure. See you then.” Fernando returned the smile as best he could and hoped that some time in the next couple of hours he could work out what he actually wanted to say.

~~

Antoine took a deep breath, raised his hand to the door, then lowered it again. He shook his head at himself. He was being ridiculous. It was probably nothing; he hadn’t seen anything in Fernando’s eyes on the pitch or in the dressing room. He certainly hadn’t been about to kiss him as Antoine had thought for one absurd, dizzying moment. It was just his imagination running away with him. This was just Fernando, this was just the same as any other time he’d knocked on his door, this was— this was it. This was make or break. This was where all his dreams came true, or they all came tumbling down. On the other side of the door was everything he had ever wanted, or everything he had ever tried to avoid. It was— fuck. “Get a grip, Griezmann,” he muttered and knocked on the door.

Three heartbeats later it swung open to reveal Fernando, his hair rumpled and falling into his eyes. He flicked it out of the way and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Come in.”

Antoine followed him into the room. There was only one chair and sitting on the bed suddenly felt wrong somehow, though he would have done it without a second thought before. They stood in the centre of the room, not speaking, Fernando fiddling with his hair.

“I thought it was Saúl. That you liked.”

“I know. It’s not.”

“Yeah. I get that now.”

“I mean, I love him, but…”

“Yeah.”

“It really didn’t occur to you that it might be you?” Antoine said, to stave off another awkward pause as much as anything. And also because he really wanted to know. He hadn’t exactly been subtle at times.

“Saúl’s closer to your age, he’s a good looking guy, you’ve got a lot in common. It made sense. I’m— I’ve noticed your— look, you’re always saying how you looked up to me when you were a kid and I thought that any interest you showed in me was, well, that.”

“It’s not.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m not fourteen anymore, Fernando. I know what I want.” Fernando nodded in apparent acceptance of this, but it didn’t seem to make him any happier. Antoine took a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this or if I’m just imagining things, but earlier, at the match, I thought— do you— shit.” On the principle that actions speak louder than words, Antoine took a determined step forward, went up on his toes, and pressed his mouth to Fernando’s.

For a second nothing happened, then Fernando’s lips moved against his and Antoine had to grab hold of him to avoid sinking to the ground. Fernando’s tongue glanced against his lips. A hand moved to his shoulder, Fernando’s thumb brushing against his neck, and then he was being pushed gently backwards. They had broken apart before Antoine even knew what was happening. “I’m sorry,” Fernando whispered. Antoine could feel it against his cheek. “I shouldn’t have.” The hand disappeared from his shoulder. Antoine opened his eyes to find Fernando moving to the bed. He sat down, his head bowed. The joy and exhilaration rushed out of Antoine; he had to sit down. He fumbled his way into the chair without taking his eyes off Fernando.

“I don’t—”

“I can’t, Anto. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

“I wish I could. I don’t know if you can understand this, you’re so young—”

“I’m twenty four,” he protested.

“Exactly. You’re still on your way up, you’re going to do great things. With Atléti, I hope. With France. But me— this is my last shot, Antoine. I have to give this everything. I can’t afford distractions, I certainly can’t afford to cause problems in the team. We’re teammates. It’s never a good idea.”

“It’s a risk for me too, you know. A scandal could derail my entire career before I ever get a chance to do those great things. But I still want to try. With you.”

“That’s the other thing about being twenty four. It’s easier to be brave.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Antoine said. “You’re the bravest person I know.” Fernando smiled, but it was the sort of smile that said Antoine was wrong, that he didn’t understand.

“It’s not a scandal I’m worried about, you know. It’s the team. The team’s more important than anything, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve loved Atléti all your life and you’ve liked me for about five minutes. Of course I can’t compete.” Antoine didn’t want to sound bitter but it crept in anyway. Perhaps Fernando was right; it would affect the team. Perhaps it was already happening.

“What? No, it’s not about that, it’s—”

“I know, Fer, I know. Sorry. I’m just disappointed.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to be unhappy, and I think I’ve been making you unhappy and I’m really sorry. I wish you’d told me.”

“Yeah, well. Didn’t want to have this conversation, did I?”

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t want to have this conversation either.”

“Oh yeah, I feel loads better now.”

“I wish I had a different answer for you.”

“Me too.” Antoine looked down at his knees and wondered if he was really about to say the words that were trying to get out. He looked back up at Fernando, who was still studying the carpet. His clasped hands twisted against each other, his shoulders were hunched and stiff. “What about just one night? No commitment, no distractions. Just, you know. Just you and me.”

Fernando lifted his head at last and gave him a considering look. “Is that really what you want?”

Antoine thought about it, wondered if it would make things better or worse. If Fernando would actually do it or was just calling his bluff. He couldn’t tell, and he hated that he couldn’t tell. “No,” he said at last. “That’s not what I want.” 

“It’s not what I want either.”

“We’re on the same page with that, at least. That’s something, I suppose.”

“Antoine—”

“We’re still friends, right?”

“Of course. Jesus, Anto.”

“It’s just, I don’t usually want to sleep with my friends or take them to romantic dinners or introduce them to my parents. So I’m not really sure how to do this.”

“I’m not sure either. But we’ll figure it out.” 

“Sure,” Antoine said, more optimistically than he actually felt. “So. I, um, I should probably go. Still got to pack.”

“Right, yeah. Me too. It’s amazing how much your stuff spreads itself around the room in a couple of days,” Fernando said with a weak attempt at a laugh. Antoine couldn’t bring himself to respond and the attempted levity fell heavily between them.

Fernando walked him to the door. “Antoine, I really am sorry, I just—” Fernando leaned down and pressed his lips to Antoine’s forehead. Antoine closed his eyes and counted it out — one, two, three, four. “I’ll see you on the plane, yeah?” Fernando said against his hair. Antoine nodded. He pulled away from Fernando, fumbled with the door handle and fled the room before he humiliated himself completely.

~~

Gabi had a bad feeling about this particular knock on his door. He’d been half expecting it since they got back to the hotel, but as time had passed he had begun to hope it wasn’t going to happen. But there it was, tentative and quiet. For a brief moment he considered ignoring it and pretending he wasn’t there. But instead he pulled himself into Captain mode and went to open the door.

Sure enough, a forlorn Antoine stood on the other side. “Oh, Grizi,” he said, pulling him into a hug. “I’m sorry.” He shuffled them around so they were fully in the room and shut the door.

“You already know?”

“After the match today I thought you two might talk. And I’m guessing it didn’t go well or you’d be in his room not mine.”

“Great. Were we really that obvious?”

“Actually, you two have been that obvious for a while,” Gabi said, then winced. “Sorry.” Antoine just groaned against his shoulder. “Come on. Sit down.” He glanced at his watch. There was still about an hour before they had to be on the bus. “You want a drink?”

“Got any cyanide?” Antoine said, throwing himself down on Gabi’s bed.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Gabi said, peering into his fridge. “I’ve got whiskey or vodka or gin.”

“Ugh. Whiskey I suppose.” Gabi handed him the little bottle, which couldn’t have much more than a single shot in it, and Antoine drank about half of it, pulling a face the whole time. “Diego’s going to know you’ve been in the mini-bar. Shit, he’s going to know I’ve been in the mini-bar. He’ll smell it on me.”

“Just don’t breathe on him, you’ll be fine. What happened?”

Antoine shrugged and downed the rest of the bottle. “I kissed him, he told me it wasn’t gong to happen, things were awkward, I left. That’s about it.”

“Did he say why? I mean, is he not interested or is it something else?”

“No, he’s interested. At least, he didn’t explicitly say so,” Antoine said, frowning. “But he is. The way he looked at me today, the way he looked at me and Saúl when he thought it was Saúl I wanted to be with. He kissed me, he— I know he likes me. But not enough, I guess. Not enough to risk it. Not enough for it to be worth complicating our friendship or his football or his life.” He lay back on the bed and hid his eyes with his arm. “He’d rather have sex with hookers and be lonely.”

“Right. Sure,” Gabi said, wishing, not for the first time, that he’d never got involved in this. 

“Fuck, sorry. Can you just forget the bit about the hookers?”

“Gladly.” Gabi wondered if the Saúl aspect was his fault, if he shouldn’t have mentioned Saúl to Fernando at all, and then wondered if he should start on the mini-bar too. When he was a kid he’d gone through a phase of wanting to be a train driver. Maybe he should have done that. Train drivers probably didn't have to deal with this sort of thing.

“Maybe he’s right, maybe I was stupid for even considering it. We’re teammates, there’s too much that can go wrong.” Antoine didn’t really sound convinced about this.

“Maybe. I’m sorry, I really hoped this would work out for you. But maybe it is for the best.”

“At least now I know, right,” Antoine said, in the tones of someone desperately searching for a silver lining. “I can stop wondering now and move on. Find someone else.”

“Exactly,” Gabi said as encouragingly as he could.

“Maybe I should go for it with Saúl,” Antoine mused. “That would be nice and ironic.”

“Do you want to go for it with Saúl?” Gabi said, not really feeling that this was an improvement on the current situation. “Does Saúl even like guys?”

“No, and no. So, not one of my better ideas.”

“Not really.”

“What time is it?”

“Just after half past,” Gabi said with another glance at his watch.

“Mind if I stay here for a bit? Stare at your ceiling and feel sorry for myself?”

“Don’t you have packing to do?” Gabi tried. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, but he didn’t really want to work around a miserable lump of Frenchman on his bed.

“Done it. I needed something to do while I was plucking up the nerve to talk to Fernando.”

Gabi relented. He didn’t really have much of a choice.

~~

It was no surprise at all that Antoine was sitting next to Fernando again on the flight back. They had been seatmates on every flight of the trip, a frankly suspicious coincidence that Antoine had been quite happy with until now. He considered moving — there were plenty of free seats — but they were supposed to still be friends after all. If they couldn’t handle a few hours on a plane together, then what was their friendship really?

Their friendship was fucked, Antoine decided a couple of hours into the flight. Fernando had settled into his seat with the kind of tight, polite smile he reserved for journalists he didn’t like very much, which was most of them, and then they had sat in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes. Fortunately Saúl soon sat down across the aisle, chattering away and saving Antoine from having to throw himself out of the window.

But now Saúl’s attention had been commandeered by Koke and they were back in their tense, uncomfortable silence. Fernando was actually twiddling his thumbs; Antoine could see it out of the corner of his eye. He tried to think of something, anything, to break the deadlock, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. They used to talk about things, didn’t they? What did they used to talk about? It had only been a few hours and already Antoine couldn’t remember.

He couldn’t handle staring at the back of the seat in front of him any longer, so he turned to look at Fernando in the hopes that this might at least prompt some sort of reaction. To Antoine’s pulse-racing delight it did; Fernando turned his head towards him and a smile tugged at his lips. It was a soft, sad sort of smile, but it was still preferable to the horrible ‘I don’t want to be here let’s get this over with’ smile from earlier. Still neither of them spoke, just sat looking at each other while the team bustled around them. If he let himself, Antoine could fancy that the tension between them was threaded with something more than just awkwardness. He didn’t let himself.

Fernando licked his lips. Antoine forced himself not to stare at his mouth. “Why is this so hard?”

Because I’m in love with you, Antoine thought, and you’re… whatever you are, I don’t even know how you feel because you never actually said, you bastard. Because all I can think of right now is kissing you and that makes it really hard to do things like talking and just casually hanging out, and I’m pretty sure you’re thinking it too. “It’s new,” he said instead of saying any of that, because he did still have some sense of self-preservation and dignity left. “Like you said, we need to figure out how to do this.”

“Maybe we’re trying too hard, putting too much pressure on ourselves. It’s just a plane ride. What do we normally do on plane rides?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been trying to remember. Talk? But I can’t think of anything to talk about.”

“Me neither.” The sad smile was back. “I’ve never had to think about things to talk about with you before. It just sort of happened.”

“Yeah.” 

Fernando’s fingers were drumming against his armrest. Before today Antoine wouldn’t even have thought about it. He would just reach across and still his hand and tell him he was annoying. Now he didn’t know what to do; whether the normality of the gesture would make it better or worse, whether his touch would even be welcome. God, how had it gone so wrong so quickly? One week in Asia and it had all gone to shit.

The stewardess came over the tannoy to announce that they would soon be dimming the lights in the cabin and Fernando immediately relaxed. “Maybe what we need is to just sleep a little. It has been a very long day,” Fernando said.

“A lot has happened,” Antoine agreed, trying for a smile that he hoped was genuine.

As they hunkered down under their blankets, Antoine tried not to think about the last time they had fallen asleep on a plane together, confessing secret things no-one else knew. Fernando had called him beautiful. He slept fitfully, and dreamed of dark empty rooms.

~~

Saúl wasn’t entirely sure this was a good idea, but he didn’t know what else to do. There was no point talking to Antoine about it, Antoine wasn’t the problem. Koke was no help at all — he thought it was all a big joke and didn’t seem to notice that Antoine didn’t find it funny any more. For about half a second he had considered approaching Fernando directly but his inner twelve-year-old with the Torres posters on the wall had vetoed that idea immediately. He took a deep breath and followed his captain out to the car park.

“Gabi. You got a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“It’s, well, it’s Fernando and Antoine.”

“Ah.”

“Antoine said he talked to you about it, that you know what’s going on.”

“Yeah, we talked. He was pretty upset about it. Fernando too, I think.”

“Then why the hell wouldn’t he—”

“There’s a lot at stake for Fernando,” Gabi cut him off. “For both of them. If he doesn’t want anything to happen you can’t force it.”

“But he does want something to happen,” Saúl said, all but stamping his foot in frustration. “Everyone knows that. There are people on, on Mars who know that.”

“There are no people on Mars, Saúl.”

“That we know of. And stop changing the subject. You know I’m right.”

“Yes, you’re right. But there’s nothing we can do about it. You can’t make people’s choices for them.”

“I’m not talking about making Fernando’s choices for him. Just making him see that this choice is the wrong one.”

“He may still see that himself. Or he may not. It hasn’t been that long since China. Give it time.” Saúl snorted. He was pretty sure there was no amount of time that was going to fix this. If Fernando just hadn’t been interested then it might have been different; things would have been difficult for a while but then they would have moved on. But knowing that they both wanted the same thing but couldn’t have it seemed to have left them stuck in a sort of limbo. They had got good at faking it when other people were around, but the minute the two of them were left to their own devices they both clammed up. They still car-pooled to training, but Saúl knew for a fact that their journeys were conducted in near-silence. He had never thought he’d miss Antoine recounting every last detail of an entirely ordinary car ride and the entirely ordinary conversations it involved. “Whatever happens will be for the best,” Gabi went on with an indulgent smile. Saúl’s patience with the entire affair and everyone involved in it evaporated.

“Oh, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“That! That look, that ‘oh you’re so young and naive and I’m the wise old captain who knows all and you’ll learn one day young padawan’. And Fernando’s just as bad. That’s what half of this is you know. Fernando thinks he’s too old for Grizi. It’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit. You know I’m right. You know it. Why should they both be unhappy when they could both be happy so easily and the only problem is that Fernando is a stubborn idiot. And you could do something about it. You could help. But you won’t. Because you’re a stubborn idiot too.” He ran out of breath and words at about the same time. He looked at the hard line of Gabi’s mouth and wondered just how much pull he had with Diego, and whether he was staring down the barrel of another season out on loan.

“Are you done?” Saúl nodded and Gabi broke into an amused smile. Saúl let out a breath. “Fine. You’re right.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I wasn’t going to interfere any more but you’re right. The season’s about to start and they’re both miserable and Fernando needs a kick up the backside. Just one kick though,” he warned. “If he really doesn’t want it that’s up to him.”

“Thank you,” Saúl beamed, already picturing a world where having a conversation with Antoine wasn’t like trying to talk to particularly depressed lump of clay.

“I won’t be talking to him though, I don’t think he’ll listen to me. He needs to hear it from someone higher up.”

“God?”

“Almost. I think it’s probably time to admit to Diego that this is beyond me.”

Saúl’s mouth fell open. “Diego? You’ve discussed this with Diego?” Saúl would rather cover himself with raw meat and jump into the lion enclosure at the zoo than discuss this with Diego. It hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility.

“Yes. He asked me to keep an eye on the situation and let him know if things were getting bad.”

“I think things are getting bad.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Diego? Our manager, Diego? Our boss, Diego?”

“No, Diego the guy who sells flags outside the Calderón. Yes, our boss.”

“Wow. What was that conversation like?”

The amused look fell from Gabi’s face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

~~

Fernando didn’t really think anything of it when he was summoned to see Diego. He was fond of these one-on-one chats with the players. The office door was open, so Fernando rapped his knuckles on the frame and stuck his head inside. 

“Niño,” his coach greeted. Fernando managed not to roll his eyes. That was never going to go away. It was particularly grating from Diego who had always found it hilarious to call him that back when Fernando, fourteen years his junior, had been his captain.

“Cholo.”

Diego grinned at him. “Come in. Shut the door.” He waved his hand at the free chair by the desk. “Sit.” Fernando sat. Diego leaned forward in his seat with his elbows braced on his knees. “Everything okay? With you, I mean.”

“Great. I’m back home with my kids, you can breathe the air here instead of drinking it, the season’s about to start and the team’s looking good. Everything’s fine.”

“Really? No problems at all?”

“Nope.”

“No problems with any of your teammates?”

“No,” Fernando said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. He knew he could get away with more with Diego than most people could. In private, at least.

“Fernando.” It was a warning.

“Diego,” Fernando said in the same tone.

“You and Griezmann—”

“Are none of your business.”

“You are my business. You play for me.”

“Are we playing badly?”

“No. You’re both playing very well.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Fer,” Diego said, his voice soft. Fernando hated him just a little bit when he did this; blurred the lines of their relationship when it suited him then redrew them when it didn’t. “What’s going on with you two?”

“Are you asking as my manager or as my friend?”

“As long as it’s not interfering with your football, your friend.”

Fernando shrugged. “We’re fine. We’re friends. Friends go through rough patches. We’ll figure it out.”

“Fernando, I know.”

“If you know, why did you ask?”

“No, I mean I know that, well, that the two of you aren’t friends. That whatever is going on is…” he seemed to be struggling with the word “…romantic.” 

It was like going down after a hard tackle, winded and disoriented, the rush of blood drowning out everything else. He stared across the desk at his coach, his friend, all his resistance stripped away with one sentence. “Diego, I—”

“Look, I don’t care, okay? I don’t care who you want to be with, or why, or what their genitals look like. But when it’s two people on my team — You understand why that would concern me.”

“Yeah, I get it. Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen.”

“No, you misunderstand me. I’m saying I think you should go for it.”

“You think I— What?”

“I wasn’t going to get directly involved, I thought things would play out how they were going to play out. But you’re unhappy, he’s unhappy. And I think it would be better for everyone if you weren’t unhappy.”

“You think I should go for it?”

“If that will stop the pair of you moping around the place, then yes.”

“But, the team—”

“Is that really what you’re concerned about? Or are you just scared?” Fernando opened his mouth to snap back a retort, then closed it again when he found he didn’t have one. “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. It’s not a position I’ve ever been in. If you honestly feel that getting into something with him just now isn’t the right thing for you, for whatever reason, then fine. Of course you shouldn’t do it in that case. But don’t hide from it, Fernando, it’s not like you. And don’t lie to yourself either.”

“I’m not lying to myself. It’s just— what if it all goes wrong?”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“What if we get caught? By the press, I mean.”

“I doubt you will, if you’re careful. If you do, we’ll deal with it. The board are behind you, you know that.”

“He’s a lot younger than I am.”

“Maybe that’s what you need. Besides, he’s not that much younger than you.” 

“I’m not,” Fernando began. But he had no idea what he wasn’t or was anymore and he let the sentence die.

“You’ve never shied away from risk before, Torres. Don’t go all twitchy on me now.” He sat back in his chair and picked up a file from his desk. “Think about what I’ve said and get out of my office. Not in that order.”

~~

Fernando and Olalla were sitting on sunloungers on the patio watching the kids splash around in the pool. It was bizarrely like when they had been married, except Olalla was telling him about the date she had been on last week (not in too much detail, they both had their limits) and Fernando was only half listening because he was contemplating embarking on a relationship with one of his teammates.

“Earth to Fernando. Are you listening to anything I’m saying?”

He considered lying but he had never been able to pull that off with her and it didn’t seem likely he would start now. “Not really.”

“What’s the matter?”

Again he considered lying, and again there was no point. “I think I’m in love with Antoine.” There was a long pause and then Olalla’s laughter rang round the garden, sending a startled Nora toppling into the pool. She resurfaced a few seconds later, coughing and spluttering but unharmed. “Thank you for your support.”

“Not your wife anymore, not actually required to support you,” she said, still grinning. “What happened to ‘I’m not interested in any of my teammates’?”

“Apparently I was wrong about that.”

“Apparently.”

“Can you not, please.”

“Sorry. So, what are you going to do about it?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but then Diego spoke to me and… I don’t know.”

“What have you got to lose?”

“Everything?”

“You won’t lose everything.” She reached out and took his hand. “You’ll always have me. You’ll always have them.” She nodded over to the kids, who appeared to be engaged in a competition to see who could get the most water out of the pool. “That used to be enough.”

“Oly…”

“Don’t— I didn’t mean that. I just meant, you have the same support you’ve always had. More, even. So don’t be afraid, okay?”

“I hurt him pretty badly, turning him down.”

“And the solution is to keep hurting him? That’s stupid, Fer, even by your high standards.”

“Well, when you put it like that.”

“What did Diego say when he spoke to you?”

“Basically that I should stop being a coward and go for it. I think Gabi thinks the same. He hasn’t said it exactly, but I think he was trying to coax me that way. I thought he was talking about Antoine and Saúl but it turns out I was really wrong about that. ” She was smiling at him in that way she had, like he was being unbelievably dense but she thought it was cute. “What?”

“You know the story about the guy in the boat in the flood, don’t you?”

“Noah?”

“Not Noah. Jesus, Fernando, you’re supposed to be one of the intelligent ones. The flood waters are rising and everyone’s evacuating and he refuses to leave.”

“And he says that God will save him and refuses to get on the boat or whatever and he drowns,” Fernando said. He remembered this now. “He asks God why he didn’t save him and God points out that he sent a boat and a helicopter and something else, and it’s the guys own fault that he died.” Olalla nodded. “What’s your point?”

She leaned closer, and he thought how much easier everything would be if they could have just stayed in love and stayed married and stayed together, like this. “He’s sent you a captain, a coach and an ex-wife. What are you waiting for?”

~~

Antoine felt terrible. That was fairly normal these days, but this was worse. His head felt heavy and slow, as did his feet. Training had been like trying to swim through mud. His appetite was shot. He tried to remember if he had soup of any description at home. Perhaps Fernando wouldn’t mind driving via the supermarket to pick some up. He slid into the passenger seat of Fernando’s car and promptly forgot all about it.

Fernando was even quieter than usual on the way home, and for once it was actually a relief. He laid his head against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes.

The car glided to a halt and it took a few seconds for Antoine to realise they were outside his house. He had no idea how they had got there. He fumbled with his seatbelt. “See you tomorrow.”

“Anto, can we— do you mind if I come inside? Can we talk?”

Antoine almost said no. All he wanted was to go inside and lie down and not get up again for some time. But Fernando was looking at him with a mix of anxiety and hope, or Antoine thought he was, and he thought that maybe this was something he wanted to hear. Even if he was wrong, he had to hear it. He couldn’t run the risk that Fernando might change his mind if he put the conversation off. “Sure. Come in.”

He dropped the key trying to get it in the lock and it took him three attempts to enter the code for the alarm. Fernando followed him into the living room. “Look, I know I’ve been— are you alright?” Antoine was having trouble focusing; the room was weirdly blurry. His skin was cold and clammy. He could hear Fernando saying his name but it sounded far away and when he tried to reply he couldn’t. And then everything went black.

~~

Fernando’s carefully rehearsed speech went entirely out of his head when he looked up to find Antoine staring blankly at him. “Antoine? Antoine, are you okay?” His skin had taken on a pale, waxy sort of sheen that Fernando noticed just as Antoine’s head tipped back and he crumpled to the ground. Fernando just about manged to break his fall before he hit his head on the coffee table. “Antoine? Antoine? Fuck.” His head was an empty white buzzing. What the fuck did he do now? He needed to calm down, try to think. He took a deep breath, then another. Breath! Was Antoine breathing? Did he have a pulse? Yes and yes. Okay. What next? Weren’t you supposed to put unconscious people in the recovery position? What in God’s name even was the recovery position? He wracked his brain, trying to remember the first aid course he’d been on what must have been fifteen years ago. There had been some badly drawn diagrams of one person rolling another person over with their arms and legs in weird positions. He arranged Antoine as best he could; it looked very uncomfortable. The airway had to be open and unobstructed, that was the important part. He remembered that much. Airway seemed fine, so. Now what? Ambulance. Professionals who knew what the hell they were doing. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone.

It seemed like a very long wait, sitting on the floor beside Antoine, holding his hand, stroking his hair and periodically checking he was still breathing. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before he heard sirens approaching, which was when he realised the ambulance wouldn’t be able to get in. It went against all his instincts to leave Antoine’s side, but he forced himself up and ran to the control panel in the hallway, praying that he would be able to work out Antoine’s security system. He knew the code to get in through the front gates but that didn’t necessarily mean he would be able to operate the gates from inside. To his relief, Antoine had taken his advice and used the same security firm that he did, and the system was basically the same. He opened the gates and the front door and ran back to Antoine, whose eyelids were starting to flutter.

“Anto? Antoine, can you hear me?”

“Hmm, yeah. Wha?” His eyes flickered open and fell shut again and he turned his head towards Fernando.

“Don’t move,” Fernando said. There were footsteps and voices in the hall.

“Hello? Ambulance?”

“In here,” Fernando called. He reluctantly stood up and moved away from Antoine as the paramedics entered the room. Not too far away though.

“What happened?” one of the paramedics asked.

“I don’t know, he just collapsed.”

“Did he hit his head?”

“No, I don’t think so. I caught him.”

“My hero,” Antoine mumbled from the floor. He still looked pale and not entirely with it, but he was smiling. Fernando was too relieved to even tell him to shut up. He nudged him with his toe instead.

“Can you tell me your name?” the paramedic asked as she checked his pulse.

“Antoine.”

“Do you know what happened?” 

“I have, like, the flu or something. I’ve felt like shit all day.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Fernando brought me home. We were talking. Then he was kneeling on the floor next to me telling me not to move.” She quizzed him further as she examined him, and Fernando hovered anxiously: how long had he been feeling ill, what were his symptoms, what had he been doing? It turned out he’d eaten nothing all day, the fucking idiot. The rest of the paramedic team, clearly no longer needed, went to wait in the ambulance.

“Well, no great medical mystery here,” the paramedic said. “You have a virus, you need to eat, need to rest. You’re probably a bit dehydrated too. Is there someone who can look after you?” she asked, looking uncertainly between him and Fernando.

“Yeah, I can keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t do something stupid. Like a hard training session on an empty stomach.”

“And who’s going to stop you doing something stupid like calling an ambulance because I have a cold?”

“Fuck off, you collapsed. What was I supposed to do?”

“Okay,” the paramedic interrupted. “Everything seems to be fine here. I’ll leave you both to it.” She gathered up her equipment and turned to Fernando. “You did the right thing, by the way. Just make sure he has plenty of fluids and doesn’t do anything too strenuous.”

“Can I get up off the floor now?” Antoine said.

“Yes, but be careful, you’ll probably still be a bit wobbly.” 

“Thank you,” Fernando said. “And sorry for dragging you out here for nothing.” Antoine muttered something about not being nothing, which Fernando ignored.

“Like I said, you did the right thing. You had no way of knowing what was actually wrong with him. I’ll see myself out. And, um, good luck with the season, both of you.” She smiled sheepishly and waved to them as she left. Fernando went to help Antoine get up off the floor.

“I can get to the couch by myself,” Antoine grumbled. 

“Really?” Fernando said, letting go of him. “Go on then.” Antoine shot him an annoyed glare and took a determined step, and then another. Then what little blood had made its way back to his face drained out of it again and he stumbled. Fernando slipped his arm back around his waist and supported him the rest of the way. “You’re such a stubborn idiot,” he muttered as he lowered him to the couch.

“Ha. Look who’s talking.”

“What do you want to eat?”

“Nothing.”

“You already tried that and you ended up unconscious. You’re eating something.”

“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about?”

“After you’ve eaten.”

“No. Stop putting it off. Talk to me.”

“We are not having this conversation until I know you’re not going to pass out half way through it. And stop pouting. Do you have any soup?”

Antoine folded his arms. “No. Maybe some toast?”

“Fine. I will make you some toast. Do not move.”

Fernando went to the kitchen, hunted out some bread and dropped it in the toaster. He stared at the glowing element and tried very hard not to think about Antoine lying on the floor, his skin pale and cold. His hands trembled a little as he spread the butter.

When he got back to the living room he found Antoine had done as he was told for once and not moved. His eyes were closed but he looked very definitely asleep rather than unconscious; his face didn’t have that grey-ish tinge to it for a start. Fernando sat on the edge of the sofa. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty. You need to eat. I brought water too.”

“I’m not asleep,” Antoine mumbled sleepily. He opened his eyes. “That’s the second time you’ve called me beautiful.”

Fernando smiled and brushed Antoine’s fringe back from his face. His forehead still felt a little damp. “Just eat your toast.”

Antoine struggled upright and Fernando propped him up with a couple of cushions. Then he took a large, deliberate bite of his toast. “There. Happy now?”

“No. Keep eating.” Antoine glared and chewed his toast, though he had some trouble swallowing. Fernando passed him the water.

“This is nice.”

“It’s just toast.”

“No, I mean, you and me. Talking. Being normal.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess with all the drama we forgot to be awkward with each other.”

“And now you’ve reminded us. Well done.”

Antoine smiled. “Life’s nothing without a bit of drama.” The smile fell away. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You did, but it wasn’t your fault. Well, it was kind of your fault. You should have told someone you were sick, idiot. Diego would never have made you train in this state.”

“Your bedside manner is terrible.” 

“Why do you think I’m a footballer and not a doctor?” He watched as Antoine finished off the toast and made sure he drank every last drop of water. “Sorry I didn’t notice you were ill. I was too busy thinking, well, thoughts.”

“Thinking thoughts? Hmm. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I think you know.”

“I might be wrong.”

“Are you sure you don’t need more food, or a nap or something?”

“Fernando, stop it.”

“I was wrong. Before. When I turned you down. I— I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

In lieu of an answer, Fernando leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were greasy from the toast and rough with crumbs, but his mouth opened eagerly and he sighed into him. He grabbed Fernando’s shoulders and it took a second for Fernando to realise that it wasn’t out of passion. “You okay?”

“Dizzy.”

“I have that affect on people,” Fernando joked. Antoine rolled his eyes and kissed him again, but had to stop after a few seconds.

“Sorry. Fuck.” He flopped back against his cushions. Fernando carefully removed them so he was lying down, then lay down beside him and draped his arm across his waist. Antoine sighed and rested his head against Fernando’s shoulder. “This is not how I imagined this going.”

“How did you imagine this going?”

“Well, there was more tongue involved, and definitely more sex.” He twisted his head round to look at Fernando. “And usually there was only one of you,” he added, rubbing his eyes.

“You’re seeing double?” Fernando asked, sitting up and flapping a hand in front of Antoine’s face, though he had no idea what this might accomplish.

“I was joking, Fer,” Antoine said, batting his hand away.

“Oh.” Fernando lay back down and Antoine settled against his side. “What do you mean ‘usually’?”

Antoine laughed. “If one Fernando is good, two must be better, right?”

“Fucking hell.”

Antoine laughed again and tilted his head up for another kiss. Fernando complied, wriggling down the couch to bring their heads level. It was soft and languid; no rush, no goal in mind, just enjoying each other. Fernando couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed someone like this, just relishing it for its own sake rather than as a prelude to sex. It had been a very, very long time. Perhaps Diego was right, perhaps the age difference was a good thing. Then he pushed that thought aside, because he really didn’t need to be thinking about Diego right now.

“You know,” Antoine said, breaking away. His cheeks had a little more colour in them. “I reckon as long I stay horizontal then I’m good for anything.”

“I am not having sex with you in this condition.”

“Please?”

“No. The paramedic said nothing strenuous.”

“I don’t have to do anything strenuous. I can just lie here and you can do whatever you want.” Antoine’s hand was teasing at the waistband of his jeans, fingers dipping under the edge, flirting with the skin of his hips. Fernando caught his breath and took a good look at Antoine. He looked better than he had half an hour ago, but was clearly still unwell. “Please?” Antoine tried again.

“If you pass out during sex I’m going to be traumatised and will definitely never have sex again.” The hand disappeared and Antoine gave a frustrated grumble.

“Fine.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Fernando said, cupping his face and pecking him on the lips.

“I know. And I suppose if you weren’t all noble and considerate then I wouldn’t like you so much in the first place.” He sighed dramatically. “I should have fallen for a selfish bastard instead.”

“How do you know you didn’t?”

“Hush.”

“I’m sorry. Not about the sex. About before. I was scared.”

“You’re not scared now?”

“I’m fucking terrified.”

“See? Bravest person I know.”

“All that stuff I said before, about the risks and the team. That’s all still true. But, I want this anyway. Want you.” Antoine beamed at him, and for a second Fernando thought he was going to pounce on him. He braced himself, preparing to wrestle him into a non-passing out position despite how much he would quite like to be pounced on right now. But all he did was kiss him on the cheek then snuggled up against him.

They stayed like that for a long time, and Fernando tried to think only about how good it felt to have Antoine wrapped around him and not about what an idiot he had been to run away from this. Antoine had fallen asleep and Fernando was about to drift off too when Antoine stirred.

“I had a plan, you know,” Antoine mumbled. Not actually asleep then. 

“What sort of plan?”

“To get you to like me. Or notice me. I don’t know, it was stupid. At one point it involved flirting with Saúl to make you jealous.”

Fernando snickered. “I think your stupid plan worked.”

Antoine pressed his face against Fernando’s neck and Fernando was pretty sure he was smiling, but he was far too comfortable to lift his head to check. “Yeah? You were jealous of Saúl?”

“Unbelievably. I don’t think you were even flirting with him but— yeah. I thought I was okay with it, that I was just worried about you and how you’d be if he didn’t return your feelings. But yeah, I was jealous.” Antoine’s arm tightened around his waist and then, despite the difference in their size and Antoine’s weakened state, he found himself being flipped around and pulled on top of Antoine.

“It was never him,” Antoine said, as serious as Fernando had ever seen him. “It was never him, or anyone else. It was always you.”

“I know. I know, I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising.” One of Antoine’s hands was in his hair. The other slid lower. Much lower.

“We can’t—”

“I’m still horizontal and I feel fine. Better than fine. I feel great.” The hand that was in Fernando’s hair moved to brush against his lips. Antoine smiled up at him, happy and tempting. “Stop thinking so much, Torres. I told you before, I know what I want.” Fernando lowered his head.

It really was alarming how little resolve he had when it came to Antoine. 

~~

“You’re looking very pleased with yourself,” Germán said, appearing at Diego’s side.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Diego said, indicating the view in front of them. Óscar had been putting the squad through their paces for over an hour and none of them looked even close to dying. They were well drilled, well honed. They were ready. “This is our year, my friend.”

“You said that last year.”

“I’m telling you. Did you see Saúl and Koke earlier?”

Germán shot him an alarmed look and then laughed. “Oh. You’re talking about football.”

“Of course I am.”

“For a second I thought you were contemplating more ill-advised matchmaking.”

“There is nothing ill-advised about my matchmaking, thank you. Look.” Óscar had called a quick break and Fernando and Antoine were chatting happily with Óliver and Carrasco. Fernando had his arm slung around Antoine’s shoulder and Antoine was leaning into him.

“How many times do you think they’ve fucked in Torres’ car?”

“Oh my god.”

“I suppose as long as they’re not doing it on club grounds it’s none of our business.”

“Please stop talking.”

“You know one of these days you’re going to walk in on them in the locker room or something and you’re going to see a whole lot more than you wanted to see.”

“They wouldn’t do that. They understand the need for discretion.” As he spoke, the group dispersed and Fernando held Antoine back. He dipped his head and whispered something to Antoine, at some length and presumably in quite a lot of detail. Diego could see Antoine blushing from the other side of the field. Then Antoine reached up and kissed Fernando beneath his ear before scampering back to the rest of the team, a clear bulge in his shorts.

“Oh no,” Germán cackled with a glee Diego didn’t think at all necessary. “You don’t have to worry about those two at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I may write a fic that doesn't involve slightly difficult conversations in cars and/or planes. Maybe.
> 
> [Atléti's pre-season trip to Japan and China](http://en.clubatleticodemadrid.com/videos/atminsider-asia-2015) involved, amongst other things, Antoine being a goalkeeper and being very pleased with himself about it, Fernando and Moyá speaking Mandarin and being very pleased with themselves about it, Antoine sporting some dubious facial hair, and Juanfran and Moyá playing table tennis while Fernando and Koke made fun of them. None of this is any way relevent to the fic (despite my efforts) but it is all very cute.
> 
> Germán Burgos is Atlético Madrid's assistant coach. He was a goalkeeper for Argentina and Atlético and [once saved a penalty with his nose](http://www.marca.com/2012/04/11/futbol/equipos/atletico/1334127031.html). He was (or still is?) the lead singer of a rock band called [The Garb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N2MLr48S2E). This is all even less relevant to the fic than the other stuff but it's important information and more people should know it. He was supposed to have a bigger part in this fic but it all got rewritten and he's ended up with just two slightly random cameos.

**Author's Note:**

> I doubt they would have really shared rooms (the ATM Insider videos suggest they didn't) but it's fiction, so let's say they did.
> 
> To my knowledge, Antoine didn't have any sort of allergic reaction while they were there. I just wanted an excuse for Fernando to rub stuff on him.
> 
> I'm way too lazy to go searching through Antoine's twitter for it, but he did tweet about Stevie leaving Liverpool. Something about him being a legend IIRC. EDIT: [The_Household_Cat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Household_Cat/pseuds/PetitAntoine) did my work for me and [found the tweet](https://twitter.com/AntoGriezmann/status/599676774914629632). He called him a 'fantastic player' and 'great role model'. Eh, I was close enough.


End file.
